What Nacho spoke about.

13 Feb

2023

ES Speech

EU response to the humanitarian situation following the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria (debate)

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Madam President, in this House we have had, in recent years, many opportunities to exercise the most justified criticism of the Turkish governorate; with its authorities, not with the country or with its admirable civil society. I've said it many times: Erdoğan is not Turkey and Turkey is not Erdoğan. It is to Turkey, to the nation, to society, to its people, that we must address today with empath…

2 Feb

2023

ES Speech

Situation of the former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili (debate)

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Madam President, everyone in this House has pointed to polarisation as the serious problem of Georgia's political system. A political system that seems to revolve only around one issue, which is the situation of Mr. Saakashvili. A situation about which it is necessary to remember that it was deliberately provoked. Everyone in this house recommended to Mr. Saakashvili not to enter the country illeg…

17 Jan

2023

ES Speech

Human rights and democracy in the world and the European Union’s policy on the matter - annual report 2022 (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, thanks to the work of Isabel Wiseler, and Isabel Santos for our group. The extent and depth of authoritarian currents in the world, the apparent security of liberal postulates, the fact that we have ceased to be a model for other societies, the erosion of our soft power, our repeated failure to attempt democratic experiments after conflicts, reveal a certain bewildermen…

13 Dec

2022

ES Speech

Annual implementing report on the EU association agreement with Georgia (debate)

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Madam President, mistakes have been made with Georgia, also on our side. I think putting it in a different situation from Moldova and Ukraine was. But neither are the country's authorities and opposition helping. Everything is conjured up to delay the start of a normalized political agenda. Everything is conjured up to maintain a polarization that is endangering the country's European project and,…

13 Dec

2022

ES Speech

Turkish airstrikes on northern Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (debate)

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Mr President, Turkey often accuses the European Union of practicing double standards, but there are times when our double standards seem to benefit it. Let's see, how have we qualified the fact that a country, claiming the desirability of preventing a hypothetical and future danger, invades a neighbor with military forces, violating an internationally recognized sovereign border, even if it calls …

13 Dec

2022

ES Speech

Implementation of the New European Agenda for Culture and the EU Strategy for International Cultural Relations (debate)

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Mr President, thank you, Mrs Yenbou, for your leadership in this report. It's been a pleasure working with you. It is up to me to give the opinion of the AFET Committee and therefore, inevitably, the issue is our European cultural diplomacy, the external aspects of the report. The certain weakness of our European cultural diplomacy is a deficit to be corrected. European cultural identity in the wo…

22 Nov

2022

ES Speech

Question Time (VPC/HR) - The impact on third countries of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in relation to the “Black Sea Grain Initiative” agreement

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Mr President, Mr Borrell, that last thought of yours is very good for me, because the issue of re-exports must be made transparent. Because sometimes the data indicate the first port where that cereal ship stops and we do not know if the cereal, transformed into flour or not, goes to other places. That is a market that must be clarified, because sometimes we receive confusing news about Turkey, wh…

22 Nov

2022

ES Speech

Question Time (VPC/HR) - The impact on third countries of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in relation to the “Black Sea Grain Initiative” agreement

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Mr President, Mr Borrell, the actual result of the Black Sea operation has been ten million tonnes. However, the diplomatic and image result for Turkey has been enormous. Turkey appears as the great benefactor of the third world, playing a role that has diplomatic returns. What has been the real result of our solidarity corridors? Despite that cost you said, despite the bottlenecks, we have taken …

19 Oct

2022

ES Speech

Outcome of the first meeting of the European Political Community (debate)

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Madam President, we are still in the haze. We do not know if this is an expectation of what could become or is always a talking show, but we must remember that many things in Europe began as a talking show, like the European Union itself. It takes time and a couple of crises. But for this we have to solve some doubts. Is this about values or is it about realpolitik? To values Macron referred, to v…

5 Oct

2022

ES Speech

The situation of human rights in Haiti in particular related to gang violence

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Mr President, this is a good example of what human rights emergencies in this House could turn out to be. A wake-up call and not a battlefield for sterile partisan battles. We sometimes throw human rights urgencies at each other, and that doesn't help the situation we're dealing with much. I appreciate the tone of the negotiation, always constructive, with the aim of putting Haiti on the agenda. I…

4 Oct

2022

ES Speech

Access to water as a human right – the external dimension (debate)

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. – Madam President, Commissioner, she replaced my group's negotiator in this report, Mrs Bettina Vollath, who has left Parliament these days. I would like to thank you for your work on this report and on many others in the DROIT Committee and wish you good luck in your future. I would also like to thank Mr Urbán for his attitude and ambition. This could have been a more filling and predictable ro…

4 Oct

2022

ES Speech

Question Time (VPC/HR) Heightening tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan following the recent military escalation

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Mr. High Representative, the degree of commitment of the regional factors in the conflict can be measured graphically with that horrible video that we have talked about, not executions, but murders, and whatever the date of that video. International society had to admit, what a remedy, that Russia and, to a lesser extent, Turkey would act as interposed forces. But Russia is logically in something …

6 Jun

2022

ES Speech

2021 Report on Turkey (debate)

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Mr President, I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs for their work. This is a complicated, devilish dossier, but the truth is that working with them has made it very easy. Our commitment, ladies and gentlemen, is to a country, not to a government. And when we think about the relationship with the country, let us think about its civil society, because we are of the little that is left to tha…

6 Jun

2022

ES Speech

2021 Report on Turkey (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the periodic report on the candidate countries describes their progress towards European standards of all kinds, and at its core, of course, is the examination of the situation of rights and freedoms and the rule of law; It is not trivial to recall it in an environment where principles and values often give way to crudely geopolitical considerations. The Euro…

19 May

2022

ES Speech

The fight against impunity for war crimes in Ukraine (debate)

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Mr President, the aggression against Ukraine represents in the most dramatic way the contrast between two models of society and two attitudes towards the centrality of international law. This has to be evident also in the different approach to the criminal consequences of the Russian aggression. We – and, in this ‘we’, of course, including Ukraine – have to be extremely careful in our procedures. …

4 May

2022

ES Speech

The case of Osman Kavala in Turkey

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Mr President, the Kavala trial has culminated in the most serious sentence possible, aggravated life imprisonment, on a person who until a few years ago was a philanthropist practically unknown to his public opinion. A process that, in addition, has dragged seven other citizens, equally innocent, in the same wave of blind revenge. The Turkish authorities were well aware of the political consequenc…

8 Mar

2022

ES Speech

Foreign interference in all democratic processes in the EU (debate)

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Madam President, I would like to thank the initiative and leadership of Raphaël Glucksmann and the work of Mrs Kalniete and the shadow rapporteurs, including my comrade Andreas Schieder. I want to comment on one aspect that I have insisted on during my work in the committee, which is interference in electoral processes. Electoral processes: not on election day, not even just the campaign, but the …

15 Feb

2022

ES Speech

A statute for European cross-border associations and non-profit organisations (debate)

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Mr President, Mr Vice-President, I would especially like to thank Mr Lagodinsky for his perseverance, because taking a dossier stuck since the 1980s, putting it on track, resurrecting it and securing the political agreements necessary to put it back on the table of the Commission and the Council seems to me to be of great value. He said this is the right time. In Spain we say "better late than nev…

15 Feb

2022

ES Speech

Human rights and democracy in the world – annual report 2021 (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, Mr Borrell, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and the colleagues who have worked on the dossier, because it seems to me that, once again, it reinforces an already classic position of this Parliament, and that is precisely what I wanted to talk to you about, because there seems to be a perverse division of roles between the institutions of the Union. A perverse distributi…

19 Jan

2022

ES Speech

Situation in Kazakhstan

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Mr President, with this resolution agreed by the main groups, the European Parliament is sending a clear message to the Kazakh people and authorities: a message of solidarity with Kazakh society, which is facing a critical economic situation, aggravated by the pandemic, and a rise in prices in a political context of lack of freedoms and corruption that has lasted for decades, a combination of tire…

25 Nov

2021

ES Speech

Human rights violations by private military and security companies, particularly the Wagner Group

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Madam President, it is not always hybrid warfare, sometimes it is hybrid actors in traditional or conventional conflicts that accelerate this flight from the law in an international framework of already weak and frequently unfulfilled legislation on war. But whatever the actors and whatever the overlapping labels with which they are hidden, at the end of the chain of command and payment there is a…

6 Oct

2021

ES Speech

The Council's lack of will to move the European cross-border mechanism forward (debate)

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Mr President, some Members have expressed here their personal and political experiences in cross-border cooperation. This is my case, and that is why I also know that advances in cross-border cooperation always initially find misgivings and reluctance in ministries and capitals – an environment of suspicion. That is why it is good to remind governments that Europe has been legally built with treat…

5 Oct

2021

ES Speech

Implementation report on the EU Trust Funds and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, the problem is still there, I mean that we have not managed to bring down that huge number of people in Turkey, and it seems that the problem is going to get worse and there is no realistic prospect that those people will be able to return, for example, to Syria or Afghanistan. That is why special care must be taken in the guarantees of return, always under the advic…

16 Sep

2021

ES Speech

Government crackdown on protests and citizens in Cuba

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Madam President, a single-party system in the 21st century is a historical anomaly, it is an old one and it is an undemocratic system. As the European Union has a role to play in promoting democracy, we have to be very critical of that political system in order to protect citizens and try to help bring about peaceful change. To respect citizens' rights, think what you think. Being counter-revoluti…

15 Sep

2021

ES Speech

The Pegasus spyware scandal (debate)

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Madam President, I would like to draw attention to one aspect of which little has been said: the consideration of Pegasus as a software for military use or a "military grade of spyware" because, indeed, if to sell Pegasus you need the permits of a weapon, it is because Pegasus is one more weapon in this hybrid war. And, on the international handling of the arms trade, there is a great deal of hist…